Category: Knowledge

A collection of articles related to Wing Chun principles and application. This includes information on relaxation, structure and a glossary of terminology,

Footwork – By Michael Tse

On By craigsands24In Blog Posts, KnowledgeLeave a comment
Read Time: 3 mins 21 secs
Suitable for: Beginner

Many people today practice Wing Chun, Chi Sau (sticking hands). However, they only stand in the same position and they do not move their feet. In this way it is very easy to lose a lot of energy, because when your opponent is very strong and they are attacking you, you cannot move to avoid their power.

The most common way we do to avoid an opponent’s power is to change your technique such as changing from the Bong Sau to Tan Sau or the other way round. Of course, there are other techniques you can use by yourselves but because you do not move your stance, you have to use more strength. Therefore we see many people, who do Chi Sau just like they are fighting. With this kind of skill, only the stronger and bigger guy will win easily. Even if you beat up your opponent, you can also suffer injury, so this is not the best way for Chi Sau.

In many Wing Chun training sessions we will train Juen Ma (turning stance). This is about turning your feet and your body 45° by rotating on your heel. If someone tries to attack you, you should turn your body to 45° to avoid their attack. Technically it is very correct, but if somebody who is really strong attacks, turning 45° is not enough so that is why Juen Ma is very good. However, if the energy is too strong, then some more footwork is required.

Personally, I believe that in Wing Chun skills, footwork is actually the most important. Many people studying Wing Chun spend so much time on hand techniques such as Lap Sau (pulling hand), Pak Sau (slapping hand), Gau Cha Sau (crossing hand) etc, that they forget working on their footwork. Footwork is the way to bring the right position in the right place. Without good footwork, even good hand skills would not work.

If you hit someone who does not move, then it is easy. However, if he moves, you will miss him. It is the same if someone wants to hit you, you can move to avoid the attack. Therefore footwork is very important for attack and defense. I have seen so many people keep the same position in Chi Sau and only leaning back to avoid the opponent’s attack.

Actually, this is wrong because Wing Chun does not allow the body lean forward and backward. The body should be straight all the time. That will make all the energy in your body balanced. Also leaning backwards or forwards makes our backs stiff and also you will not clearly see your opponent attacking you. Even if you can block it, the opponent’s next movement will not be clear to you. That is why stepping back is the best way to defend against a strong opponent’s attack. Your back will be straight and your vision and energy will be clear, and you will be able to read you’re your opponent’s energy correctly.

For training the good footwork, we must keep our stepping in accordance with Wing Chun training and be ready anytime for Chi Sau and defend yourself. Always be aware of the distance of the width of your feet and make sure that they are the same as your shoulders width. Wing Chun stance is always shoulder width. That is the fastest and most effective footwork. When we are walking we can walk as Zen Ma (Forward Stance), with every step we walk being in the Wing Chun Stance. No matter whether we walk fast or slow when we stop, the stance should always be shoulder width. When we walk as Teu Ma (Backward Stance), the footwork is still in the Wing Chun Stance, which is shoulder width. It is the same even when we walk to the side or in a circle. Good footwork is not difficult, we only need more practice which will bring us perfection. Just always be aware of the distance of your footwork, make it a habit, then it all happens without thinking.

Actually Wing Chun skills are about using the whole body. You cannot just move one part of the body without connecting it with the rest. This means your hands, legs, body and head should be all connected and cannot be separated. For example, when we punch, we should punch with the footwork in unison with the punch. If we just punch from the arm, without using the footwork and whole body, then this will damage the body every time you punch.

You should consider how your feet move, how your waist turns, and how the body connects and how the other hand balances what the other hand does. We should not just think about the one punch only. A student sometimes will ask me why we only move the hands and not the feet in the first form, Siu Lim Tao. This is because, just like in languages, students learn the vocabulary first not the grammar and sentences.

It is in the second form, Tsum Kiu, and the third form, Biu Tzi, and the wooden dummy technique, that the whole body moves. So therefore, in Wing Chun technique, footwork is very important because it gives the correct angle for our hands and also allows clear vision and sensitivity. If you spend more time in footwork training than on the hand technique training, then this will give you a high level skill of Wing Chun.

Wing Chun philosophy is similar to our lives. We always think about yourself and how much benefit we will have if we do this or that and forget to think about other people. Actually, the other people are just like the rest of our bodies. If you can have a good relationship with the people around you, then you will be balanced with everybody and you will benefit from them and at the same time they will benefit from you as well. At the end, you will have a better life so always be friendly with the people around you instead of making enemies. This is the principle of Wing Chun.

Credit:

Grandmaster Chu Shong Tin (徐尚田, Tsui Seung Tin) was one of the earliest disciples of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man, and earned the reputation as the “King of Siu Nim Tau”. In 1964, Chu Shong Tin officially opened his own school in Hong Kong, and continued teaching full-time until he passed away at the age of 82.

The Power Of Speed – Ron Heimberger

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Read Time: 3 mins 56 secs

Wing Chun students, just as other martial artists, once began a rigorous and thorough program of studying the higher principles and techniques of fighting in isolation from one another. Never satisfied with this disjointed approach to fighting, Leung Bik, Ip Man’s Hong Kong teacher, imparted within the young Ip Man a sense of completeness. Although Wing Chun principles were many, Leung Bik taught that they flowed into one. The fundamental theme that Leung Bik taught was that the laws of nature become simpler and more elegant when explained in Wing Chun. One of the most thoughtful principles of completeness is speed. Elegant in its nature and simple in the discharge of technique, it expresses a key step in unifying the principles of Wing Chun.

Absolute Speed:

Perhaps the most intriguing concept to emerge from Wing Chun is that there are two types of speed, absolute speed, and relative speed. Absolute speed is determined by how fast your attack can move from its point of rest to its target. It is what gives power to any attacking movement. Absolute speed is useless unless an effective attack can be made against the opponent. No matter how the punch travels, it will do no good if the enemy can block it or attack first. The first great piece of the puzzle is that absolute speed must be mastered in the beginning and that it is made up of a combination of principles. These principles are relaxation and strength.

Relaxation:

In The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski wrote: “The genius of men…lies in that: they ask transparent, innocent questions which turn out to have catastrophic answers. Einstein was a man who could ask immensely simple questions. Even though relaxation may seem strange and simple, it has desperately far reaching, paradoxical implications. For example, most people tense-up at just the thought of a confrontation. Wing Chun practitioners train to overcome this tendency. They train to relax. Relaxation unlocks more power and speed than can be imagined. A contemporary law derived from Newton’s second law of motion (the kinetic energy formula) basically states that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration squared or force equals mass times acceleration squared. In other words, to increase your force, you must increase your mass or acceleration. To increase the mass behind an attack, one must relax. Relaxing the muscles has the same effect as increasing mass. For example, if you pick up a sleeping baby, you will notice that the baby seems heavier asleep than awake. In terms of fighting, properly relaxed muscles add greater amounts of mass or heaviness to the fist creating an increase in kinetic energy.

Another way to increase the mass of an attack is to increase the velocity of the attack. In fact, an increase in the velocity of an attack has a much greater impact on the force than an increase in mass. So why then will relaxation help increase speed and power? The answer is simple. When muscles are tense, they work against each other. When they are properly relaxed, they don’t. To observe the effect that tension has on the velocity or absolute speed of your attack, tense the fist as tightly as you can. Notice the cords in your wrist popping out. Without loosening the tension, try to throw a punch. Now relax your arm and throw another punch and notice the difference in speed. It typically springs out.

Strength:

The second part of the kinetic energy formula states that speed is more vital to kinetic energy than mass. This assumption can be derived from fact that speed is squared in the kinetic energy formula. When most people think of increasing their strength, they think of weight lifting and body building. Yet this is not the kind of strength that will increase your fighting speed. Fighting power is built by practicing the things that will more than likely be happening in a fight. Practice punching in the air. Throw one thousand to four thousand punches every day and you will gain the type of strength that will help you punch faster. Do the same thing with your kicks. Throw a thousand kicks in the air every day. What ever moves you use when you fight, repeat them over and over again to develop strength. The greater familiarity, the greater the speed. The greater the speed, the greater the fighting power. When repeating your fighting movements, you must remember that you are not only doing it to practice your technique. You are also doing it to increase the strength needed for absolute speed. This is building muscle memory and correct muscles type for its specific purposes.

Relative Speed:

But in the fighting world, speed is more complex than just miles per hour or meters per second. We must also consider relative speed. Relative speed refers to your speed relative to your opponent’s speed. Though it is not the kind of speed that can be measured in miles per hour, it it is the kind of speed that enables the practitioner to beat the enemy to the punch. To get a better idea of what relative speed is, imagine yourself standing in the middle of a train track. About two hundred yards away a train is speeding towards you at about eighty miles per hour. The train has great speed and an incredible amount of power. As long as you stay right where you are, the train has the ability to destroy you. But all you have to do to take away the train’s ability to destroy you is to move aside. When you step aside, the train has absolute speed but no relative speed. Without relative speed, it can do you no harm. Like absolute speed, relative speed is made up of a handful of sub-principles. They are attitude, flexibility, sensory overload and straight line.

Originally published in Qi Gong Kung Fu Magazine March 1999

About Ron Heimberger

Master Ron Heimberger was a direct disciple of Grandmaster Ip Ching, the youngest son of the famous Grandmaster Ip Man. Sadly, he passed away in 2008. He had been a Director of The Ip Ching Wing Chun Athletic Association in the USA, and Director of the Wing Chun Kung Fu Council. He has left a Wing Chun Kung Fu legacy in his written works, and through his students within the United States, South America, Europe, and the Middle East.